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Footlight Notes Collection Picture Archive - request for use of images
A revival of The Yeomen of the Guard,
Forty-eighth Street Theatre, New York, 19 April 1915
starring De Wolf Hopper as Jack Point
'By opening his season of Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the Forty-eigbth Street Theater, William A. Brady showed that he is somewhat of a psychologist. Just as a large roomy playhouse is demanded for the broad coarse variety of humor, so a theater which conveys a sense of intimacy is best adapted for the interpretation of subtle and delicate wit. Not in recent years has a better production of a Gilbert and Sullivan work been offered and this can be said in spite of the fact that The Yeomen of the Guard can never rival The Mikado nor Pinafore in popularity. Mr. Hopper and his associate[s] played with such genuine Gilbertian spirit, the chorus sang with such enthusiasm and feeling for the witty - and frequently sentimental - quality of their lyrics, that the performance was wholly delightful if not ideal.
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'The collaborators departed from their usual form in the construction of this opera, depending upon a touch of sentimental realism rather than upon fantasy or paradox. At times it seemed to us that Mr. Gilbert was inditing his own biography in the creation of Jack Point, the jester, who must be funny at whatever cost to his pride and dignity, who is unable to be taken seriously - even in his sincerest moments of love-making. The story might be termed a leit-motif of Pagliacci. Jack Point, a strolling jester, pining "for the love of a ladye," falls desperately in love with Elsie Maynard, a light-hearted lass who accompanies him on his travels. She does not regard him seriously, however, and marries a nobleman on the eve of his execution in order that she might win a hundred crowns as his widow. When clever strategy frees the nobleman from his impending doom, she, deep in love, wed him again, this time in the presence of the villagers and the jester, who, overcome by grief, falls prostrate to the ground.
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© John Culme, 2005
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